A Quiet Retreat From Student Aid?

February 24, 1987|By James D. Barry, vice president and assistant to the president at Loyola University of Chicago.

When President Reagan submitted his budget to Congress on Jan. 5, he started a clock ticking. Unfortunately, not very much attention is paid to this clock, although it is a significant indicator of a key relationship between the President and Congress. It has to do with the making of spending legislation.

Most of us have confidence in our overall knowledge of the process by which laws are made. When, for example, the House and the Senate pass an appropriations bill and the President signs it, it becomes law, right? And if the President were to veto the bill, and if the House and the Senate then were to override the veto by the required two-thirds vote, the bill would become law, right?

Not necessarily: When the President sent his fiscal year 1988 budget to Congress, he made proposals for spending that Congress is to respond to during this calendar year. There were, however, other sections in that budget message that are overshadowed the proposals for new spending.

The focus here is on the President`s requests for rescissions--requests not to spend what was authorized and approved the previous year by both Congress and the President. His budget message asks Congress not to spend the more than $1 billion slated for needy students. That`s money he and the 99th Congress thought would be necessary to help educate the next generation. But never mind--Reagan has changed his mind about that $1 billion: more than $400 million in educational grants for needy students and nearly $600 million for the college work-study program. These are only two of many rescissions requested.

The 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act and a 1983 Supreme Court decision (Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha) make available to the President methods of controlling or influencing spending after a money bill has been passed by Congress and he has signed it.

There are requests for deferrals, for transfers and for rescissions. With a request for rescission, the President announces that he does not intend to spend the money appropriated. That starts a clock. If Congress does not approve the rescission within 45 working days, the President must release the funds.

The rules governing presidential requests for rescissions are, of course, part of the larger issue of checks and balances, of the powers and responsibilities of the three branches of government. Indeed, the 1983 Chadha decision was very far-reaching, as it affected more than 200 laws dating back to 1932, laws in which Congress had provided for legislative vetoes by one or both houses. The Supreme Court view was that such vetoes allow excessive involvement by the legislative branch in the workings of the executive branch. And as recently as Jan. 20, a federal appeals court ruled that the President does not have the authority to defer the spending of funds appropriated by Congress for purposes he does not approve of.

But let`s return to the student-aid programs that would be affected:

Although college costs are up and students` resources are eroding, President Reagan would remove a Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant of $575 from each of 720,000 exceptionally needy students. And although the small nation of Japan graduates twice the engineers the U.S. does, the President would take back $750 from each of 787,000 ambitious students who want to work their way through school. The amount saved, from the President`s perspective: $1 billion. The amount lost, from the nation`s human resources: incalculable.

The $1 billion question here is whether the rescission maneuver is truly designed to give the President flexibility in administering laws, or to allow him a public show of generous support for education in one session of Congress and a quiet retreat in the next.